Now a lot of people are freaking out, saying they want to quit
Instagram because they feel violated.

This probably sounds familiar to you. Facebook, which now owns Instagram, changed its
terms of service a few years ago and said basically the same
thing about photos that Instagram is saying now.

And guess what? A lot of people freaked out then and said they
were going to quit Facebook because they felt violated. Today,
Facebook has more than 1 billion users and has yet to sell photos
you post to anyone. Instead, Facebook makes a bunch of money in
other ways.

Even worse, these non-controversies always seem to spawn some
sort of buzzy alternative social network that goes nowhere. These
social networks get a lot of press for a hot second and then
disappear.

Some examples:

For Facebook we had Diaspora. (Actually, that ended up being
a disaster)

For Twitter we had App.net. (Actually, it's a bunch
of tech nerds who had $50 to burn.)

For Instagram, we now have the new Flickr app. (Actually,
it looks kind of neat, but Instagram has already crushed
Flickr. There's little hope people will resurrect it.)

Saying you're going to quit
Instagram in light of the ToS change sounds noble. It also
makes a great blog post! But most of you won't quit. All of
your friends are on Instagram. And because all your friends are
on Instagram, you're going to continue checking it to see what
they're posting. And then you're going to keep posting.

And in a week you're going to
forget about this whole mess.

And in a few years, Instagram is going to be pretty massive, just
like Facebook is today.

Some of you will say you still disagree. Some of you will say you
feel violated based on principle.